There's been a slight slowdown in Feature Article output these last two weeks (other commitments, I'm afraid), but thankfully, there has been an uptick in Contributing Articles to the Comics section. Check 'em out.

If you haven't heard of CGC grading, but collect comic books, you may want to read up on it. There's been some controversy about grading criteria and the odd restoration that the CGC missed, but overall, it's good to have a standardized way to evaluate and seal up rare comics for good.

Though I do think it takes some of the fun out of collecting (and reading) comics, making them like oversized trading cards. Slabbing puts comics in the realm of other collectibles which can never be used or even touched for fear of lowering their value.

Now that the kids are back in school, it's time to start worrying about grades. Serious comics collectors, on the other hand, should be worrying about their (comics) grades all year round. And there's doubtless more than a few youngsters out there more concerned about getting a 9.4 Near Mint on their back issues of Spawn than they are about making a B+ on their next math test.

The good news is that a lot of this great advice (if I say so myself) also applies to Halloween costumes – start planning now, folks! The bad news is that there's more alliteration in those article titles than I would normally like. Oh well.

Dark Horse Comics has been steadily publishing Star Wars comics since the early 1990s, beginning with such classic titles as Dark Empire. With software developer THQ, Dark Horse has now begun releasing Star Wars comics for the Apple iPhone.

Stories from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Empire, and Star Wars: Legacy, have been the first to appear in this new iPhone comics format. Each series is set in a different era, covering roughly two hundred years in the Star Wars universe.

Formatting Star Wars Comics for the iPhone

Each of the titles in Dark Horse's re-released Star Wars comics has been reformatted specifically for viewing on the Apple iPhone. Dark Horse says that all effort has been made to "maximize the visual grandeur while staying true to the original comic books."

Early impressions from readers at the iTunes Store have been favorable, though some still have trouble reading the text on the new format (unlike other iPhone applications, the comic reader doesn't allow zooming).